Project Management Checklist

Project Management requires you to manage various activities at different stages of Project and take into consideration the processes defined by your organization.

As a project manager you would like cover as many aspect that can affect the project. Though during managing a project everything might not go as planned, but if you cover the standardized processes or activities that will definitely help you in any situations.

The Project Management Checklist will help you to accomplish the standardized processes and activities. A good checklist will give you a list of activities that needs to be completed and it will also keep you informed about the status of things to be done so that the project moves in the right direction.

Things to remember while creating Project Management Checklist:

• The project management checklist should help you getting your task done rather than hurting you by adding unnecessary complexities.
• The checklist should have a clear and concise objective.
• It should contain a simple sentence written in a basic language.
• Should take consideration of your organization policy or standardization.

The author of book “The Checklist Manifesto” Atul Gawande has provided an excellent Checklist for Creating Checklist, you can download this document from the following link:

http://www.projectcheck.org/checklist-for-checklists.html

To prepare for project management checklists, You can first search your organizations archive if they have predefined checklists for various activities. This will be the best source as checklist prepared and maintained in your organization will be aligned to its processes and policies.

You can refer to template checklists available online but they will be more generic and you might need to customized them according to your organizations policies or processes.

Reference:

• List of Checklists for Project Management
• http://www.gantthead.com/checklists/

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Project Business Case

 

photo source: mischiru 

 

Why do you start a Project?
There are definitely some goals or objective that needs to be achieved by a Project.

But then you may ask why we should go ahead with a project?
You know that you have a well defined goal or objective that needs to be achieved, now a goal can be achieved using various means and techniques. You can follow any technique to achieve your goal then why you need a project. Is there a real worth(Business or Personal) to go for a Project.

Here comes into picture the need of a Project Business Case document.

A business case captures the reasoning for initiating a project or task. The purpose of a Business Case is to justify the project expenditure by identifying the business benefits you’re going to deliver.

Mumbai: Bandra-Worli Sea link Project

Mumbai is one of the largest city of India and it is basically a Island city. To connect the Central Mumbai with Western Suburb of city there is a Highway through Mahim that connects both part of city.

Somewhere in 1999 the city council decided to build a sea link as an alternate route between the Western Suburb and Central Mumbai. Hence the project to build Bandra-Worli sea link was proposed.

Now if you see above example the main objective to connect Western Suburb and Central Mumbai can be achieved using the Mahim Causeway. But then what was the need to create a alternate route that is too costly and which required one of the great engineering effort to build a highway over a Sea.

The business case suggested were:

1. To reduce the congestion on Mahim Causeway and hence a better Traffic system.
   
2. The Sea Link reduces travel time between Bandra and Worli from 45–60 minutes to 7 minutes. This is a huge time saver, now one can save more than 70 percent of time traveling from one end to another.
   

 

What does a business case contains:

• Business Problem or Reasons for the project.
  
• Identify Alternate Solutions.
  
• Identify a preferred solution and reason for selection..
  
• Costs
  
• Benefits - Tangible
  
• Benefits - Intangible
  
• Timescales
  
• Investment Appraisal
  
• Assumptions and any other supporting text
  

What are the factors raise the need to create a Business Case:

• Market Demand- In order to retain or gain market position, companies may commission new projects. For Ex:  A company facing competition in market authorizes a project to build Customer Support System for a better customer experience.
• Organizational Needs- To run an organization, the organization needs to develop and improve process needed for various operational activities. This will need the organization to authorize a new project to develop/improve processes. For Ex: To effectively manage the IT Projects the IT department may authorize a project to develop a Project Management System.
• Customer Request- The customer may request a new product/services or ask for customized solution. For Ex: A wedding planner commissioning a project of wedding ceremony based on the customer requirement.
• Technological Advances- As technology advances one may need to discard the old technology to stay efficient. For Ex: A company authorizing a project to develop software application for mobile phones with advances in smart phone technologies.
• Legal Requirement- Legal requirement affect how the organizations operates. For Ex: The new anti-smoking law required the company to authorize a project to develop smoking guidelines in the office premices.
• Ecological Impact- Go Green or Save the Earth is the slogan of the day. For Ex: A car company authorizing a project to build a solar operated car to reduce the emission of harmful particles in the environment.
• Social Need- After all we all live in a society. For Ex: The city counsel authorizing a project to develop a shelter house for the homeless.

How does the Business Case helps making a decision:

• It tells the the top management why we want to start a project.
  
• It will tell the stakeholders what we are going to achieve from this project.
  
• The business case will be referred while monitoring the project progress if we are aligned to the business goals.
  
• The business case will also be guiding point if we need to terminate a project if it is not aligned with the business case.
  

Who creates the business case?

Creation of Business Case is a  task that is usually the responsibility of stakeholders and sponsors. If a Project manager realizes that he should build a business case for whatsoever reason, then he should work closely with clients, sponsors and other stakeholders.

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Project Statement of Work

Ever wondered what happens before starting any project.

Picture this that one bright morning (or evening for who are late sleeper) you went to a Fitness center, join there and start pumping the iron….
What will happen after couple of month? Will you continue going to gymnasium?
Well that depends on what results you get...right...
So then how do you decide if you got the results..I mean how will you verify that?

That depends on the goals or objective you have set.

So the first thing that is needed to start any project is know the goals that you want to achieve and that means a well defined objective should be mentioned.

Now taking example of fitness, your goals or objective may be different, it may be any of the below:

• You may want to go for Body Building...
  
• You may want to stay just fit and flexible.
  
• You may want to join a weight loss program.
  
• You may want to have a mind and body experience like in yoga...
  
• You might like to have a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Demi Moore...
  
• You might like to have Sports related Fitness...
  
• Or you can add any goals or objective you want to achieve...

So depending on your goals or objective you might plan for or choose different type of fitness regime...but your goals must be clear as what ever fitness regime you select, at the end of certain duration you can compare if the results matches your expected goal... If that happens the project is successful and the results are accepted. If it doesn't happens dont worry it is just to tell you either some of the tasks to achieve results were not done sincerely or you just discovered at least one way how not to achieve your goals.

Now that your objectives are clear, now you have to define your requirements. Again taking example from the Fitness Center, suppose your goal is to join a weight loss program then you might specify following things:

• You need to loose 5 pounds per month for next 3 months.
  
• You want to fitness trainer to specify the nutrition details(or you might want to take this seperately with a dietician).
  
• You might specify your medical conditions like Blood Pressures, Back ache etc. that needs to be taken into consideration.
  
• You might specify the time you will be available for the workout.
  
• You migth specify if you want personal training or you will be comfortable working out in a group.
  
• You might also tell the budget you want to spend for this fitness training.

Now what we did just now is defined all the requirement, specification and constraints  within which you would like to meet your goals. It is not necessary all your requirements will be met but it will definately help your Fitness Adviser to plan things optimally to meet your goals.

Now in the world of Project Management a Project Statement of Work (SOW) is a document where the sponsor (or the client or business) specifies the objectives they want to achieve through this project, they will describe the product or services to be delivered by the project and will provide a comprehensive high level requirements.

The SOW document is then referred by the Project Manager or Vendors to understand what exactly is required and what is the project objective. This also give clear indication on what requirements must completed in order the sponsor will accept the project as completed.

Further Reference: How to Write the Project Statement of Work (SOW)

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Project Integration Management

Project Integration Management includes the process and activities needed to identify, define, combine, unify and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the Project Management Process Groups.

According to PMI following processes falls under Project Integration Management:

• Develop Project Charter
• Develop Project Management Plan
• Direct and Manage Project Execution
• Monitor and Control Project Work
• Perform Integrated Change Control
• Close Project or Phase

The most important thing in any project is that it should satisfy the stakeholder’s needs and expectation. The Project Integration Management should help to Identify and Define the project expectation set by the stake holders. The purpose of  developing a Project Charter in Project Integration Management is to develop a document which authorizes a project or phase documenting the initial requirements meeting the stakeholders needs and expectation.

Once the requirement is set and the stakeholders needs and expectation are authorized, The project manager needs to prepare a plan to execute the project. This is done with the help of Develop Project Management Plan process, this process documents the actions necessary to define, prepare, integrate and coordinate all subsidiary plans. The tasks mentioned in Project Management Plan should lead a Project Team to achieve the project’s objective.

In order to achieve the Project’s objective, the task mentioned in project plan must be executed. The Direct and Manage Project Execution is a process that leads the team to perform the work mentioned in Project Plan.

The work that is done should be tracked, review should be done and the progress should be regulated so that the project meets the deadline meeting the project performance. This is done in Direct and Manage Project Execution process.

Changes occurs in any project, during the execution the stakeholders may raise changes to the original requirements. The process of reviewing all change request, approving the changes and managing changes to the deliverables, project documents and project management plan are done under the Perform Integrated Change Control.

Finally when the project comes to closure, there are many activities that needs to be finalized before the project is formally completed, these activities are done in Close Project Phase.

The above article is based on the PMI specification defined in PMBOK.

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